Book Review: Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision by N.T. Wright
N.T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision.
Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009. 279 pages/$18.53
Anglican Bible scholar N.T. Wright addresses the sharp criticism of Reformed Baptist pastor John Piper and other critics who see Wright’s representation of the so-called “New Perspective” as a threat to the doctrines of forensic justification and imputation from the 16th century Protestant Reformation and 17th century post-Reformation. At issue is what is meant by the terms “justification” and “righteousness.” For Piper and his allies who see themselves as the faithful successors of the 16th century Reformers, justification refers to God’s juridical declaration that sinners are right in God’s sight on the basis of faith alone in Christ’s righteousness alone, that the perfect righteousness of the Son of God was imputed upon sinful humanity as the sins of God’s elect were imputed upon Christ on the cross, thereby accruing to himself the righteous judgment of God. In this so-called “old perspective,” works of any kind that would somehow contribute to one’s salvation are negated for every work done by humanity is tainted with sin. What is needed is God’s grace and the gift of faith to believe and trust in God’s goodness and mercies.
While Wright and Piper arrive to the same end – God saving Jews and Gentiles in Christ, God keeping his covenantal promises, God renewing creation to God’s glory, God bringing his redeemed people into a new community – their perspectives on reading the relevant Pauline texts are different. For Wright, the term “righteousness” refers to God’s covenantal faithfulness to the promise made to Abraham that through the seed of Abraham, i.e. Israel, the world would be blessed. The Torah was given as a means to exhibit the distinctive character of holiness of Israel to be a shining example to the nations, but because of the unfaithfulness and idolatry of Israel, God had to take care of seeing the promise through – i.e. the blessing of the nations and, indeed, of the whole creation.
For Wright, the term “justification” has four dimensions: it’s a law-court verdict that God has found favor toward sinful humanity and thereby the relational status is of forgiveness; it’s naming members of the covenantal family (the circumcised and uncircumcised) who are marked by Torah-obedience; it refers to the eschatological promise that the present verdict of pardon will match the future verdict; and, finally, it refers to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has inaugurated a new creation and taken care of idolatry, sin, and death.
In this framework, the accent is on God keeping his promise, to bless Israel, and through Israel, the whole world, which means the apostle Paul’s pastoral concern is on the due regard of Gentiles by Israel in the covenantal family, in which the latter sought to withhold the Abrahamic promise to itself and exclude the former from God’s original intention. Thus, God’s righteousness is demonstrated in God’s insistence, through Paul’s letters, that Gentiles are to be included in the family fold in every way.
Wright sees Piper’s reading of the Pauline texts as through the 16th century concerns of the medieval church over and against Anselmian soteriology, and the Reformation concern of personal salvation, and how God’s grace in Christ is appropriated to people through the Church and its ministrations. What is excluded from such a reading, according to Wright and the New Perspective, is a due regard for Israel, the Abrahamic promise, and the communal nature of the new community of the church.
There is much to commend to this volume. Wright, in his characteristic way of careful exegesis and analysis, brings us a gift with his comprehensive treatment of Old and New Testament texts on this subject. As one whose theological tribe is the Reformed tradition and where I have not only been taught but have also taught and preached on these same texts and emphasized the imputed righteousness of Christ and the imputation of our sins upon Christ at the cross, Wright’s proposal was a necessary challenge to see another perspective, a new perspective on these texts. Indeed, both Wright and Piper, and their respective allies, seek to arrive at the same goal: the faithful proclamation of the Gospel to all people, and the faithful exegesis and teaching of holy Scriptures to all people.
As we pastors, preachers, and students/teachers of Scripture know, the Word of God in any given context and in any given time will bless people beyond what we think or imagine. I commend this volume as a necessary perspective that needs to be considered. It is comprehensive, it accounts for the Abrahamic promise all the way through to the New Testament, it addresses a needed 21st century reality in our world of the relationship of God’s covenant for all of humanity in religiously pluralistic contexts, and it brings to the fore the importance of regarding our neighbor – Jew/Gentile – as part of the covenantal family of God, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit.
